First Day at Fast Track - The Adventure Begins

My first day at fast track began with an unintended adventure when I went outside to feed Sonny. It was still dark and I called sonny and rattled his grain in his feed tub to get his attention. I heard rather than saw him coming down the fence line and when I looked in his direction I spied a grey ghostly horse apparition headed toward me. At first I thought someone must have put another horse in Sonny's paddock over night but then I realized this grey horse was being followed by another horse and they were on my side of the fence. They trotted right up to me, looking for their breakfast and when they realized I didn't have food for them they snorted and took off down the fence again.
Fortunately, a couple of friendly and helpful fellows were loading a trailer in front of the house next door and when I called over to ask if they had lost any horses, they volunteered to come help me corral the interlopers. The three of us managed to catch one horse and as soon as he was lead into a paddock, his partner in crime quickly joined him. With the escapees safely locked in a pasture, I was able to halter Sonny and begin the one mile walk from Whitehall to the Parelli Center.
Walking Sonny down the road, I tried to manage my own nervousness so that I wouldn't communicate it to him. Sonny was good as gold during the walk. He was alert, but not at all nervous, pausing only a few time to grab a quick bite and we were the first to arrive at the center. The Parelli staff members we met on our walk up the driveway seemed surprised to see someone arriving without a trailer but they directed me to the pen that would be Sonny's home for the next month and showed me my assigned tack room and feed storage unit. After hanging around for a while watching other students with an amazing assortment of horse in an even more interesting assortment of trailers, I bummed a ride back to Whitehall so I could fetch my car and all my gear.
Orientation began at 11:30. John Barr, who runs the education program, introduced the faculty and gave us an overview of how the course would build from week one with a strong focus on line through week four where the focus would be more on precision riding. He also gave us an outline of the daily schedule. Finally John introduced Pat, who talk at length about the Parelli Core Values and how important they are to anyone who wants to go forward to be a Parelli professional.
One of the things that originally attracted me to studying Parelli Natural Horsemanshipä was how principle based it seemed to be and how it focused on never ending self improvement. I was really pleased to hear Pat Parelli talking about core values. Understanding these values, stated below, can really help me see how well aligned I am and what I need to work on inside of myself in order to make sure my mental and emotional fitness is where it needs to be.

Parelli Core Values
1. Put the relationship first
2. Be the best me I can be
3. Get it done with a little bit of fun
4. Exceed expectations
5. Embrace never ending self-improvement
6. Do more with less
7. Be humble
8. Keep it natural

After lunch John Barr explained the Parelli philosophy on problem based learning and evaluations. He asked us to do three things: to trust the process, to be willing to be stretched outside our comfort level and not to give up on ourselves, our horses or our instructors. And he also emphasized that this four week process for each one of us is about our individual journeys. The journey will probably not be without its roadblocks and may even have set back but if we keep our focus and stay in the moment, we will make progress.
The rest of the day was given over to evaluations. We took a knowledge test, for which I felt reasonably well prepared and then did four evaluations on our use of tools, where I don't think I did as well.
All in all, I felt that the members of the faculty with whom we interacted, went out of their way to make us feel welcome and comfortable. There was a lot of laughter and by the time we went in to eat dinner, the level of energy, as measured by the level of noisy conversation, was very high.
My day finished in the dark, with Sonny escaping from his pen while I was bringing him some molasses water. He had sucked down one pail (I think he thought I was giving him candy) and pushed out through the gate when I went out to refill the pail. Thanks to some quick work by nearby students, he was quickly captured and returned to the pen where I left him eating hay. I got home exactly 12 hours after I had left, tired and dirty but feeling really good about my start in fast track. Tomorrow our evaluations continue. It should be another long and exciting day.